A landmark black metal recording. Varg handles
all drums, bass, guitars, synths and vocals himself, blasting forth with
boo-tih-boo-tih-boo-tih speed grindcore (not cymbal-crazy noise grindcore
like early Napalm Death - just a solid 4/4 backbeat being played entirely
too speedily) and abominably ugly and annoying shrieked vocals. The Pagan
Horseman of Odin? Or just a really annoying young longhair making noise? A
little of both.

The lyrics are all in English but you can't understand a
word of them. Subject matter is of course Viking-related, with such moving
refrains as "Cries of the (ha, ha) suffering sound/Cries for help to all
their dead Moms". The metal riffs are pretty threatening, though fairly
predictable -- lots of "play this chord here and move my finger up a bit,
then move up to the next chord and move my finger up a bit, then back down
to the original chord, repeat." Aside from the grindcore-type tunes, there
are a couple of really cool NWOBM-type riffs ("War" is killer!
Killers, this means war!) as well as some cold clinical synth
instrumentals to help you better envision the dark Norwegian tundra in all
its frightening majesty (especially "Dungeons Of Darkness," a
Residents-style ambient piece de concrete featuring the winds of demonness,
chimes of evil and other spooky noises of HELL).

It's not the greatest nor
most listenable CD I've ever heard, but a score of 7.51 seems about right.
If you like speed metal, this is just taking it an EVIL step further. But
don't you even TRY to tell me that the singer's voice doesn't annoy the shit
out of you. I don't even know you and I know it does.

Reader Comments

irontyrant@earthlink.net (Michael Grefski)
Before I continue I would like to state that Varg Vikernes is a dickhead. Thank you. This is one of the blackest black metal releases ever. Yeah it's rudimentary, yeah it's a bit on the amateur level...but that ambience! Bathory achieved the same thing (only better) on their "The Return" album, but Burzum's debut comes pretty close. And those vocals! Yeah I can't understand any of 'em (except at one point where Vikernes says "This is....HARGH....War!") but the wierd, wailing effect he has overall is pretty unique. Note: I own an original Deathlike Silence records version of this CD, put out by the guy Vikernes killed. I am wicked sick underground and no you can't have my copy. N'yah N'yah.

Less speed thrash this time aboundst, with the
majority vote going to more midtempo Iron Maiden-ish riffitudinal
viscosities. Also more atmospherics and keyboards for your listening
pLEASURE TIME PRODUCTS. Vocals? Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill ghastly! The
production seems stronger this time 'rounds, with more bass and
double-tracked guitars in the mix. And for a big superchange that would
certainly stick around for decades to come, Mr. Varg has started penning his
lyrics in some weird Norwegian style language that makes no sense to the
people of our century! Two of the songs are still in English, the world's
finest language and four are instrumental and thus speak the universal
language of love, but those other two? Oooh la la!

As for the two songs I
can factually understand, they're about how angry Varg is at the church and
society for not allowing him to follow his morbid path of darkness. "I will
open the gates to Hell one day..." he screams in "Key To The Gate," alluding
not only to his desire to seek out an alternative lifestyle but also
possibly to his desire to unleash the hounds of hell upon society. Of
course he ended up blowing his big chance by killing not a Christian leader
or Norwegian politician (whatever the hell political system they use over
there - do they still barter?), but just another dumb Norwegian black metal
guy!!!!! Sheesh! Talk about a waste of a philosophy! That would be like
if GG Allin, after all these years of threatening to kill himself on stage
and take as many spectators as posible with him, were to die alone in his
sleep of a drug overdose!

Reader Comments

alexmortland@hotmail.com
The best Burzum album, by far. Some of these tunes are even impressive from
a compositional point of view, which is rare with Burzum.

His later work, however, is dull CRAP, the worst black metal I've ever
heard. Varg simply lost the ability to make his music the least bit
interesting. He should've taken the time to compose more than one boring
riff per ten-minute song, instead of burning churches and stabbing metal
dudes.

Aske??? My fiancee's last name is Aske!!!! It's
as if Mr. Varg Vikernes penned a romantic love triad to my sweet snuggly
girl! "A Lost Forgotten Sad Spirit"? That's what I feel like when my
sweetheart isn't by my side. "Stemmen Fra Taarnet"? I'm pretty sure that's
just a translation error - it's of course about my "Woman From Charlotte."
And "Dominus Sathanas"? I think Varg is poking light fun here at how often
I order Domino's Pizza for dinner -- ha ha you Vargo! Musically, more of
the same here. Great punk-style chord thrashin' and metallic riff lick
stickin' with those atrocious vocals come home to roost on the chimney. Not
as much arpeggiating on the strings this time around though. Did I mention
that in the last two reviews? If not, do a quick cut and paste because he
certainly loves to run his pick up and down the strings one at a time while
scuzzly-duzzlin' his high speed chordature. FYI, you can get this EP and
Burzum on the same CD, so do it!

I know what you're thinking,
Sniffy. You've been steadfastly reading every single album review on my
site with one thought thinkin' up your headbrain -- "Why does Mark give out
so many fucking 8's?" Well see, this is a hobby for me. I don't get free
records regardless of how many rim jobs I hand out at CMJ every year, so I
have no choice but to review the albums in my collection. And what artists'
catalogues am I most likely to own in completion? The ones I REALLY LIKE!
And since scores of 9 and 10 mean the same thing to me - darn near
perfection - not that many albums are going to rate that high. Thus, I have
a lot of "8" albums in my collection. If you want to see some really low
grades on my site, feel free to record your entire Jimmy Buffett collection
for me.

That's my company line anyway -- honestly I just give out all the
8s so I can keep repeating my favorite piss joke, "On a scale of 1 to 10,
you're an 8!" Ha ha ha!!!! Ah me, it's every bit as funny to me today as
it was when I first heard it as a wee, wee European.

I don't know if this is a bootleg or something
that Varg had his mother put out to raise money to break him out of "the
chain gang apartments," but it's something of a ripoff to normal Burzum fans
like you and me. It's got four instrumental demos of songs you probably
already know, one new one, a Cliff Richard song (???) that he performed with
Mayhem (presumably before he murdered their guitarist by stabbing him 50
million times) and then the head of the Asatru religion (?) singing the
words of Odin (?) while backed by a Burzum instrumental that I'm sure you've
heard a hundred times on your local classic rock station.

Don't complain
though - this is the first Burzum release that comes with a photograph of
Mr. Vikernes, the scummy hippy! Looks like me with my old hairdo, he do!
But with a battle axe instead of a seventy-five inch penis!

On the upside,
this whole "instrumental and other singers" format means that you only have
to hear Varg's ear-curdling shrieks in a couple of songs. But on the down
hand, most of the material is half-finished and sounds that way. So be sure
to pick a bale of cotton before you blow $20 on this as one "Mark Prindle"
did at some point.

Reader Comments

space@neteze.com (King God Space)
Unbelievable. Every week, I check into Mark's page to see what crappy
punk/hardcore band he's added (as well as the occasional GOOD band like BOC
or Motorhead) -- and suddenly, out of the blue, he reviews Burzum. Fucking
BURZUM!!! Norwegian Black Metal God Of Hell!! Is this a sign of the
apocalypse? It must be!

No, it's not a bootleg. Ragnarok is a limited edition 2000 release with
a print run of 1,000 copies (mine is #961, so they must be sold out by
now.) It will also be the final release under the Burzum name, or so Varg
says. Apparently he's pissed off at all the music stores that kept filing
his prison-made synth albums in the black metal section.

deadguy1213@yahoo.com (Daniel Miller)
Can't believe Varg actually made people shell out the big bucks for this. Guess maybe he thought he could use it to get the wardens to buy him a bigger recording studio. In case anyone checkin this out doesn't know, Varg broke out of jail last month and was captured after a high speed chase with Tommy Lee Jones and co. In the meantime, damn it Beavith, put that away. You're not supposed to have your seventy five inch penith out while you're reviewing Burzum.

For the record folks, it wasn't Billy Corgan who murdered the spirit of the American people. He just molested it while Courtney Love put a gun in its' mouth and pulled the trigger.

svein@spolmask.net
oh yes it is a bootleg, and a shite one at that. as far as i can remember
it consists of a slew of demo tracks and a deluge of irrelevant others
downloaded from the old burzum.com website, hence the 128kbps "near CD"
sound quality. that's why it has a picture of varg on the cover, which he
hasn't done since 1992 on the original version of the debut. not to
mention his denouncing all guitar-based sound as "nigger music" being an
indication of his inclination to release this material. i'm gonna go dive
into a bathtub full of bagels.

Four songs = 45 minutes! As ever always and eve,
interesting stuff though. Kind of the And Justice For All of black
metal, what with its endless repetitive riffing. Track one? Midtempo
riffage typical of Varg - chords arising and a-lowering into the bowels of
rockin' goth hell with a churchy synth background. Track B? Speedcore!
Track M? A departure! Odd two-note bass line more reminiscent of Can than
Burzum. All three become Business As Usual (copyright Men At Work) pretty
quickly though, with Varg screaming his little lungs out, the fuck. And
trak final? SYNTHS - like the soundtrack to a horror movie.
Eeeeerie.

I'm not saying that the dude really brings that much new to the
table here that we haven't already heard from him, but he does a good job
tying together a bunch of lengthy passages. Plus he recorded like 15 albums
within the span of a year so it's easy to forgive him for lack of artistic
rebirth.

One other thought has crossed my mind: Regardless of the dreary
cover art, endless ghastly shrieking and horrific Norse lyrical overtures,
most of Burzum's music isn't scary. Certainly if I saw Varg Vikernes
walking down the street, I might step aside, he being a murderous sociopath
and all, but his music - as distorted, reverbed and minor-keyed as it is -
isn't scary. Irritating? Sure, at times. Boring? Okay, he likes to
repeat chord sequences over and over again. But scary? Mmmm.... Some of
the synth stuff would work well on the soundtrack to Halloween The
13th, but it's not going to make anybody but a buffoon run and hide
beneath the bedsheets. But then again, I live in the sunny U.S. of A. If I
lived in dark, cold Norway where the demon horsemen ride by night, perhaps I
would be every bit as afraid of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss as I am of Billy
Joel's Turnstiles LP.

Have I mentioned recently how much I fucking
hate the pussyass music of Billy Joel? Feel free to argue with me here, all
you Burzum fans.

Reader Comments

joulupukki666@hotmail.com
Hvis lyset tar oss is one of the best black metal albums I´ve heard. Det som en gang var is considered by some people the best black metal song ever. The songs are not about being as scary and spooky as possible. It´s all about the atmosphere and getting into a trance-like state. I live in Finland in the middle of forest and I feel familiar with this music. I can understand that some guy in U.S.A can´t get into this album. I quess it´s easier for scandinavians to fully understand this music. People in USA don´t really have very deep roots with ancient believes and all that (except the indians)

Just understand that Burzum is not about trying to achieve the feeling of a horror music in music. It´s about something else. And the vocals are great! They just sound almost like he is crying. Black metal is not about sounding "cool" and "spooky".

I Give this album 10/10

JUDRHRADEK@iol.cz
hvis lyset tar oss is the best black metal album i have ever heard.Varg=genious!

zawynul@hotmail.com (Joe Mackertich)
I completely agree with the guy above. Mark has approached this album from the wrong angle. In my opinion this is the record which proved black metal could be more than just a past time for teenagers; it is the first time the black metal music did actual justice to the black metal ideal.

Mark claims this is the ...And Justice For All of black metal but I disagree. Using that analogy, this would be black metal's Reign in Blood. Untouchable.

For your own sake Mark try listening, really listening to this with headphones at night. It will not, and should not, scare you but instead take you away somewhere far. Det Som en Gang Var- What Once Was.

klebe5@hotmail.com (A Devoted Fan)
Well what can I say, I've heard the first track of this album and ordered it
yesterday on vinyl. Who cares if its simplistic, its the atmosphere of utter
despair and catatonic trance-like state that it conjures that just makes it
and absolute must if you are seriously into (or even if you are just getting
into) black metal. And before anyone asks no I don't wear corpse paint and
all black, I don't live in a dark forest in the northern reaches of
Scandanavia in fact I live in England in a relatively viking mythology free
village.

Uarestoned@aol.com
I have to say your lack of knowledge shows through clearly in this review. For Christ's sake, all you have to do is read Varg's thoughts on the album to know he wasn't trying to scare you.

..."what with its endless repetitive riffing."

That's because it's supposed to be hypnotizing.

"And trak final? SYNTHS - like the soundtrack to a horror movie. Eeeeerie."

You clearly don't understand music at all if you think the fourth track is "eeeeerie." It's relaxing; he's taking all the negative sonic emotions from the previous three tracks and attempting to calm the listener down a bit. Quite frankly, I'm amazed even someone not well-versed in black metal could miss this. Hell, I know a few potheads who chill out to "Tomhet," and stoners generally aren't going to "chill out" to something that would "would work well on the soundtrack to Halloween The 13th" now would they?

kidwidney@yahoo.com
Im gonna have to agree with these other folx and say you missed the boat completely. This album is a masterpiece. The fact that you listened to it and still reviewed it from the perspective you did......that says you dont quite get BURZUM. Its night music. I understand not every note the guy ever did is so genius or anything like that,but this album....you gotta let it get into you. Listen to it while on your substance of choice at night.

jsheald@gmail.com
I think Mark was just making the point that the music don't sound scary, and that may be interesting for people who haven't heard it. *Not*criticizing it for not sounding scary. He gave it an 8!

Nerps and sherps, baby! Nerps and sherps! That's
what Varg is singing about this one, Nerps and sherps!

No, but venereous
baby.... Listen at THIS shim - a feller at the Houston Chronicle - I'm not
gonna give out his real name, but it rhymes with "Gwight Bilverman" - he
says to me, "I'd love to review your site but you say 'Fuck' too many times!
You know us family papers!" Can you believe that pussyshit? So now I'm a
failure. A nobody. And it's all the fault of a guy at the Houston
Chronicle whose name rhymes with "Gwight Bilverman". Sheeshkabob!

This CD
starts off tricking you into thinking it's going to be the best yet. The
first two songs are monstrously fuzzed out anthems -- LITERALLY billions of
fuzzy guitars meshed with the gentle wisp of a gothic synthesizer. Best of
all, Varg is no longer shrieking annoyingly, but rather screaming maniacally
into a distortion device! Listenable? Shit man, pretty as your
sister!

No, not your buttugly one - the other one! You know, the
one we all fuck all the time!

See, that's what gets me about "Gwight
Bilverman." It's okay for him to fuck your sister, but I can't talk
about it on my site? Jesus christ.

So you're enjoying this dandelion of a
good midtempo black metal CD that kinda reminds you of Samhain when all of a
sudden this track #5 comes on. A nice little synthesizer number called
"Rundgang um die transzendentale Saule der Singularitat" (translation:
"Hey") and suddenly you realize that you're bored out of your mind and the
goddamned three-note song that goes NOWHERE is TWENTY-FIVE FUCKING MINUTES
LONG. And then track 6 is like a repeat of one of the earlier tracks. And
you're all like FUCK!!! WHAT FUCKING FUCK IS FUCKING VRUCKARG VFUCKIRERNES
TRYING TO FUVCKAITNK FUCKRFEUR?????

And then we all take a piss on the
floor and lick it up.

Reader Comments

mikharras@hotmail.com (Mike Harras)
Gramamma had a quilt with a lady horn blower very much like the album
cover.....gramamma smoked too much & sounded a lot like Varg those last
coupla months. Call me sentimental.

sparlatacus@hotmail.com (Kim Okkerstrøm)
Hi You recommended that I listened to Burzum and so I did. Now I feel extremely dark and I dont like it. Thank you very much! And I was so dumb that I ordered an album of him some days ago. Filosofem if you must ask. How do you survive with yourself knowing you have an album of Burzum in your music collection?

cuph@libero.it (Andrea)
absolute masterpiece..and death to everyone who tries to deny Varg's genious!!!!!!!

Funny how killing a guy and going to prison will
put a damper on your rock and roll career. Just ask Eddie Money! So's
Vargarie recorded this all-synth minimalist amateur classical-type album
while cooped up in the pen. Is this what my tax dollars are paying for?
Ensuring that convicted murderers can put out their least interesting works
yet? Granted it's an exciting Rambo moving picture compared to Glenn
Danzig's comparable Black Aria, but that's like comparing apples and
really shitty Danzig albums. The music is more sorrowful than scary, but
it's not even all that sorrowful. It's just like muzak for sad alternative
teens or somesuch. Pleasant enough in that sense though. But darn it,
every time he comes up with a really great keyboard line, he plays it 52
billion hundred times in a row until you never want to hear it again! Still
- not bad when you get down to it. Inoffensive, repetitive, melancholy
fare.

So come on down and join us at the Inoffensive Repetitive Melancholy
Fair! Where the rides don't do anything and the animals all keep
diaries!

Madeleine Albright has this new book out called Read My Pins and I swear to God every time I pass it in the bookstore I misread it as Read My Penis, which just reminds me of that time the first George Bush said "Read my penis: no new taxes" and sure it was a nice tattoo but you'd think the networks would've posted a 'Parental A

This is the worst excuse for a 'rarities' album I've seen since the Rolling Stones. The CD features 13 songs, six of which are pulled DIRECTLY OFF OF BURZUM STUDIO ALBUMS!!!! How RARE can something be when it's available on a commercially released studio album!?! Come on record company, look up 'rarities' in the dictionary! Are you confusing it with 'hilarities'? Because it is pretty funny how Varg sounds like Fly On The Wall-era Brian Johnson on the songs pulled from the Burzum LP -- the whole 'let's bury the vocals under reverb so you can't tell how hoarse and tuneless they are' trick is a real gasser of a boner.

Now I've gone and depressed myself. May you rest in peace, Andrew Koenig, wherever you are.

Speaking of which, does anybody find it just a LITTLE suspicious that Varg gets out of prison and not two weeks later, TV's favorite "Boner" is found dead?

Yes, I know Varg was released from prison several months before Koenig was found dead. That's why I said 'NOT two weeks later,' dipshit!

Heh heh. Little "not" humor for all the fans of the word 'not' out there. But let's get back to Dragon-ROAAARties!, Burzum's new children's album about a reluctant dragon that loves ties. Aside from two songs each from Burzum and Aske and one each from Det Som Engang Var and Filosofem, it includes two muffled instrumental demos of Burzum songs and a mere FOUR actual rarities: (a) "Outro," a hissy ambient piece that sounds like (and probably is) a church burning to the ground; (b) "Et Hvitt Lys Over Skogen," a passable piece of two-chord midtempo Black Metal; (c) "Once Emperor," a godawful recording of a growly-vocaled song with exactly one part; and (d) "Seven Harmonies Of The Unknown Truth," which begins as corny ScArY keyboard balderdash before suddenly turning into a polka-beated metal song. And if you think that doesn't sound enticing at all, get this: if you own Burzum's entire catalog and the Ragnarok bootleg reviewed earlier on this page, then you lack a grand total of TWO Draugen songs -- "Once Emperor" and "Seven Harmonies Of The Unknown Truth" -- equalling a mere nine minutes and twenty-three seconds of rarities.

So why the seemingly inflated number grade of 6? Because if you don't own any Burzum and you see this CD lying in the street, it's a pretty good introduction to Varg's sound. But as a 'rarities' release, it's lucky to get a low 4. Sad, isn't it? Isn't it sad? The things people will do to take advantage of you and your dollar? Even during a recession, when we're all out doing our best to make ends meet? For example, I read somewhere that Obama is giving all our tax dollars to crackheads and specifically telling them to buy crack with it! Why would he do this after all I did to support his champagne? Thank God the news busters at underground left wing organization 'News Corp' are digging up the truth for us.

So here are a couple of jokes to lighten the mood during these difficult economic times:

Q: What did Alan Thicke say when he learned that his former Growing Pains co-star Andrew Koenig had been found dead?

A: "Now that's one stiff Boner I wouldn't want in my mouth!"

Q: What did Kirk Cameron say when he learned that his former Growing Pains co-star Andrew Koenig had been found dead?

More prison synths but even dumber this time.
Evil sounds that aren't evil, circusy-tones that are fun but forgettable,
even more endless repetition of simple little melodies that a child could
have written -- occasionally enjoyable (especially the bizarre sound
experiment "Frijos goldene Tranen," which appears to feature both ring
modulation and acoustic guitar for a chilly feel not unlike early King
Crimson, which I'm sure is exactly what Varg was going for. What black
metallist isn't trying to imitate the king of Cold Morbid Satanism, Mr.
Robert Fripp?), but not something that would appeal to metalheads or
easy listening fans. So who's into this stuff anyway? Just sissies who
wish that they could someday be thought of as tough by somebody even
sissier? Like Donnie Wahlberg?

Reader Comments

hrhthewormking@earthlink.net (His Royal Highess The Worm King)
Well for starters "Vargs" actual name is Kristian (I know, odd to hear the name "Kristian" and the phrase BLACK METAL in the same sentence, huh?) Anyway, I can
understand how some people might not like this brand of BLACK METAL and his new synth stuff. I personaly like it a lot, but hey, that's just my opinion, I really just
wanted to let you know about his real name is all, later man, keep it Evil.

thyfilth@sbcglobal.net
varg hurry up and get the fuck out of jail........................................

burzum always

alexmortland@hotmail.com
Well, if you're gonna insist on screaming at me over those boring metal
riffs, you'd goddamn well BETTER be a murderous church-burnin' Nazi fucker.

Varg's a fascinating guy, that's fo sho. At heart, though, it seems like
he's just a D&D geek who started to take that shit a little too seriously.

olirimes@libero.it
Hey, just on the subject of Burzum. -I had an interest once but got pissed off when Vikernes murdered one of the few talented individuals on the Norwegian scene (Euronymous of Mayhem)...

dep77@charter.net
Hail!Most of you so-called Black Metal "fans" don't know shit.I respect Varg for his integrity and talent.So he murdered Euronymous,who gives a fuck!?Euronymous was a cowardly communist bitch anyway.If I were to have joined Varg on that fateful night I would have gladly fucked him up too.And after my brother Varg and I did that deed,I'm sure we would have scored some booze and chicks and partied and thought nothin' of it.Hail the Hordes

muhoboika@hotmail.com
Burzum is one of the most talented projects ever created. Go and kill yourself, you fucking idiot. And by the way Varg never burnt any of the churches himself.

glory_to_tyr@yahoo.com
Shut the fuck up you assholes.You don't know what
Burzum is what this music means nobody gives you
idiots the right to make fun of people.You and your
entire family of assholes.

Good for him that he burned those churches.I hope all
the churches in the world burn.Fuck the churches,fuck
the culture,fuck the society and most of all FUCK
YOU.Have a little one on one with Varg Vikernes see
what a good pirate he is.

alisonw10@bigpond.com
do you actually have any music understanding at all? your reviews of Burzum's instrumental albums unveil your ignorance.repition in music has a strict purpose . to the spastic black metal moron teenagers that have no musical knowledge repition is boring because kids dont have a large attention span they have to be constantly entertained.to a musicians and the like who indulge in this trancendental art form, repition is not going to take you on a musical journey it is to keep you trapped in a moment in time and allows you time to explore the realm therein.but for those unable to acheive this I bet your bored by it .INTELLEGENCE SCARES THE STUPID.

amiistika@adelphia.net (Adaliia)
I don't know how old this site is, but I must say I've throughly enjoyed reading every word you've written pertaining to Varg... So many Burzum fans take themselves way too seriously, and this shit had me laughing from start to finish!!

Hello, this is Kristian "Varg 'Count (Burzum) Grishnackh'" Vikernes, and I'd like to thank the Wal-Mart chain of stores for allowing me this space on its MarkPrindle.com retail site to tell you a bit about my new CD Belus.

As many of you know, I've spent the last 15 years in the slammer (or 'slam,' as Steven Tyler calls it in "Rats In The Cellar," possibly my favorite song on Aerosmith's Rocks LP) for the murder of Oystein "Euronymous" Aarseth. However, as of late 2009, I'm "back in the saddle," as Steven Tyler once sang, and my new CD sure ain't the "same old song and dance"!

Actually, it kinda is. That's what my friend Stacii at the fabric store keeps telling me anyway. (We're just platonic friends. Yes, she's a girl but she's not my girlfriend!) She keeps saying, "How did you manage to spend 15 years in the graybar hotel and come out with the exact same musical aesthetic that you had going in?" Well, for one thing I didn't get a lot of sonic inspiration in the pokey -- unless you count listening to my cellmates watching Barney Miller every night! And secondly, it's not like they've got a music store in the hoosegow so 15 years or not, I still returned home to the same old Hondo guitar and 25-watt amp I recorded all my other albums with.

But the important thing is that Belus' riffs are strong, rich, emotional and epic -- and my Canadian Fan Club assures me that I'm not just dreaming oats; this is indeed a robust case of licks, filled with the same type of speedy, haunting arpeggios and adventurous chord sequences you've come to associate with the Burzum trade name. And hey, if it's subtle stylistic shifts you're after, check out the piss-off slamblasting of "Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning," straight-up thrash of "Sverddans" and almost shoegazery major chord sheen of "Glemselens Elv." Sure, they all eventually return to the tried-and-true minor key arpeggios, but that's my signature, man! You can't expect a guy to change his signature, even after 15 years in the calabozo. The only valid complaint I'm hearing is that certain passages are repeated over and over for far too long, particularly near the end of the record. But if you don't enjoy hearing a single note and chord repeated 500,000 times for 9 minutes, then maybe you just aren't a music fan after all.

You know what? You have ears. You can judge the music for yourself. The real reason I purchased this advertising space on Wal-Mart's MarkPrindle.com is to provide some insight into the lyrics, and what they mean to me. Well, as you might expect, it's my own memoirs of life in the jug. I don't go into detail about the murder at all (but just know that if you'd heard what Oystein said about my momma, you wouldn't be so quick to judge). Instead, the album centers around the best friend I had the whole time I was in the can: a little mouse named "Belus."

Don't worry -- it's not a children's album! I got that out of my system with Dragon-ROAAARties!. No, this is the gritty real-life tale of my decade and a half of lockdown -- from the first moment I saw lil' Belus scurrying across the floor during a prison ping-pong match (aurally recreated in opening track "Leukes Renkespill" -- or "Look, It's A Really Cute Mousey") through our bittersweet parting fourteen years later (album-closer "Belus' Tilbakekomst" -- or "Belus - 'Til Back I Come!"). The seven tracks betwixt will introduce you to such diverse characters as Belus' wise old gray-whiskered father ("Belus' Doed"), redneck Sheriff Glemselen and his pint-sized deputy ("Glemselens Elv") and Kaimadaltha, a prostitute with a heart of gold ("Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning"). You'll also hear some of my finest memories of life in the clink, including the annual Square Dance ("Sverddans"), the time Lil' Jimmy Morg fell out of the chain gang bus while mooning a guard ("Morgenroede") and our hilarious failed assassination attempt on guest speaker Charlton Heston ("Keliohesten"). All in all, prison life was a great time with great friends -- none greater than my little cheese-eating pal Belus, who slept next to me every night in a little sleeping bag I made from a sock.

Don't even bother trying to understand any of the lyrics; they're all in a secret Mouse language that Belus and I made up together. But if you have any questions about them, don't hesitate to email me at Knifemurderer69@hotmail.com. Until next time,

I’m so tired I literally have tires growing out of my body, but that’s no excuse for not penning a mediocre review of Burzum’s Fallen CD, so here:

With his second post-prison release, Burzum murders the competition, slashes away at convention and burns down all signs of

This album sounds just like all the other free range Burzum albums, but with three important upgrades:
1) Vocalist Varg Vikernes augments his trademark ethereal screaming with deep, uninteresting singing.
2) Guitarist Count Grishnackh augments his trademark high-speed strumming and arpeggios with Western metal riffs and guitar interplay.
3) Songwriter Kristian Larsson Vikernes augments his Burzum-by-numbers musical clichés with some of the ugliest high-end horseplay he’s ever composed.

It’s a shame that this talented trio of one couldn’t pull together for a late-period rally in the album department; perhaps another nickname would’ve made all the difference. In fact, from now on, I’m going to claim all the good parts were performed by “Stinky McGee.”

I don’t know for sure that Stinky McGee has been listening to western metal, but it certainly seems so based on moments like the Sabbathy intro to “Enhver til sitt” and Metallica-style verse riff of “Valen” (which you’d think would sound like Van Halen, but whatevs). It’s in steamrolling metal moments like these that Fallen rises above its retro-Burzum trappings, particularly in the two longest and most metallic songs on the record: aforementioned “Valen” whips together a virtual Viking Boat of metal riffage and epic leads, and the longer-than-ten-minutes “Budstikken” will have your head banging even if it’s on a stake outside some guy’s castle. It TEARS the MEMBRANE out of my ASS!

No wait, that’s a hemorrhoid.

Here are some recent Facebook statuses to keep you grounded in reality:

A couple of my Facebook friends have declared today "Billy Joel Day." In celebration, I've decided to wrap my car around a tree.

Mark Prindle tonight won 2 of 3 "music trivia" rounds because he's a genius (loser), and then sang "The Final Cut" at karaoke because he's cool (a loser).

Mark Prindle would like to wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day Massacre.

Mark Prindle would like to wish a Happy Valentine's Day to my eight Grass Roots albums. Even the ones that are terrible. I'm lookin' at YOU, 1982's "Powers of the Night"!!!!

Mark Prindle would like to wish a happy President's Day to my fellow Kenyan-born Socialist Muslims. We did it! Allahu Akbar! Religion is the opium of the masses!

Mark Prindle has Guided By Voices' "I Am A Tree" stuck in his head. But I'm glad it's stuck there and not in my foot. Because who the hell wants a song stuck in their foot? Not me. I'll tell you that right now.

Mark Prindle, adding color, has joined a group of anonymous Latin American meatpacking glitterati. DID I EXPECT US TO TREAT ME WITH ANY RESPECT!?

Mark Prindle has a great idea for saving the music industry: bring back CD longboxes. People loved them, and they were also great for keeping the tree population under control.

Mark Prindle really wouldn't mind having REM's "Maps & Legends" stuck in his head right now if only his brain would stop singing it as "I took craps on legends."

Mark Prindle last night watched the first Super Bowl of his career. Do they always have a special part in the middle for the mentally retarded?

Mark Prindle doesn't want anybody to get jealous and feel bad, but I own 13 Foghat albums.

Mark Prindle apparently turned off his alarm clock without waking up, and wound up arriving at work two hours late. Employers like that, right? "Sleeping outside the box"?

Mark Prindle is so sleepy that he's about to fall asleep on his "Z" key. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mark Prindle didn't realize that Facebook was a Zuckerberg creation. I loved "Airplane."

Mark Prindle just beat his girlfriend in a big way. But it was revenge for her kicking my ass last night. Incidentally, I'm talking about Scrabble.

Mark Prindle as a young boy wrote a parody of The Beatles' "Taxman" entitled "Milkman." First verse: "I am a milkman, I bring you your milk/And with the money you give me, you buy all my silk." Paul Weller, eat your heart out. (Literally. Because you're terrible.)

Mark Prindle, in tribute to Jack LaLanne, just ate a second doughnut.

Mark Prindle is hitting the town tonight for some Ping-Pong Ball. I haven't played Ping-Pong Ball since I was a young boy, so don't get mad at me if I hit you with my Ping-Pong Ball.

Reader Comments

Scienceforlife
Its incorrect to say "western metal" in contrast to Norwegian metal. Norway is a small country (in terms of population) in northwest Europe. Its longitudinal location is as west as Germany and Italy. Its a boat ride away from the UK (such boat rides have been occurring for over a millennia; the Irish have a lot of Viking blood in them). And Norway has absolutely no communist legacy (although, like other western European countries, it is socialist in some ways). In fact, per capita, Norway's citizens have the highest standard of living in the world. But enough about the homeland of this church burning murderer. Why don't you like Social Distortion?